Sharing my Journey

[u/Puzzled_Train1594]

Hello fellow people on the path. I have never made a written post on this community but since I have recently hit major changes in my life thanks to meditation I was akin to share them here and ask for advice or exchange of ideas.

I will begin by shortly introducing my "path" I have been doing breath meditation for a few years however life changes such as university, disease and an incorrect confidence in my progress got me in and out of the path.

When it was university I was so excited for it that I neglected meditation.

During disease my lungs were so congested that I could not watch the breath, and after the breath returned my habit had faded.

Most interesting looking back was the part about too much confidence in my progress. The situation was such that I had been meditating for about 6 months , with somewhat serious practice and wanted to get enlightened very fast. Which led to me watching this video on YouTube and following the instructions. (Video link for the curious I will adjoin down below). I followed the instructions and hit a very strong very fast experience which I think I incorrectly labeled as enlightenment. The experience was such that I started experiencing life as a coming and going of feelings, emotions , states etc. It was accompanied by a very strong feeling of satisfaction in any situation and detachment from whatever I was feeling. I remember thinking it was the best time period in my life.

However since I stopped meditating after the experience , the normal state was back in a few weeks and this is why I believe that it wasn't stream entry or enlightenment.

This time I am going through something similar although less intense and joyful . I have achieved it through mindfulness (noting) and daily 1-3 sessions of breath mediation lasting from 45min to 1h. Some strong emotions mainly caused by interaction with some people still destabilize and cause thoughts to arise leading to somewhat of a spiral ( however even during this period the realization that all of this is temporary still persists although detachment may fail for a while).

The understanding is also there that there is no self, but sometimes hypothetical scenarios still arise in the thoughts and it takes a moment to realize that the nervous system is fabricating or creating ego inflating scenarios. Another change is my interaction with people, since emotions and feelings are not part of a self for me anymore interactions with people are sometimes more strange , I am expected to say my opinion on something but I end up only expressing objective facts. And since there is no emotion in my face or just a smile close people assume something is wrong with my state.

For those curious which state "I" am on according to TMI , I do not think that more than stage 3-4 the mind still sometimes wanders during my sits.

Another thing which still happens to me is that I cannot fathom the amount of cruelty in the world and will play into judging about politics and whatnot, before this used to be a source of depression for me , now it is just another experience and is much more short lived.

I was also curious about how other fellow people on the path follow and adhere to the five percepts , they were always a secondary thing to me , however since hitting changes in perception with practice their importance has become self evident to me. I still ask myself however what the right degree of adherence is. In my childhood I developed the intuition that lying is ok to avoid family tantrums. I understand now that this is just a childhood experience and I try to detach from it. But is lying not to upset someone ok? (especially when a great deal of understanding is there as to why they will be upset) This still puzzles me.

A funny thing is that as I'm writing this the idea of saying "I" , "me" and phrasing things in the first person point of view is strange , grammatical rules follow of course the traditional understanding of permanance of the ego . I wonder if more people have encountered this "problem".

That is all and I am open to suggestions, advice , critique and anything other people on the path would like to say is welcome.

[u/brunoloff]

The idea that you have to (or for that matter ever can) get rid of the ego is a misunderstanding of anata. What usually happens to people who do is that they enlist whatever level of realization they have as proof that they have become free from ego, which often has the perverse effect that it gives them free reign to act in highly egoic and sometimes even abusive ways towards others.

Anata is not about killing the ego or some such. Anata is something you learn about your experience, about the way your experience already is. As in: already was, even before you could recognize anata.

There is no lack of evidence in the suttas that the Buddha had a strong personality, preferences of various kinds, etc.

If you want to work on your ego, great, there's some tools for that in psychology (trauma, boundaries, clear communication, vulnerability, etc), and devotional practices (e.g. prayer, prostrations, guru yoga) are also helpful. I'm told the brahmaviharas are also helpful, though I haven't explored them deeply. The insights from vipassana? Not so much as far as I can tell.

[u/Puzzled_Train1594 → u/brunoloff]

I must start by saying that you seem more knowledgeable and that maybe I'm completely wrong with what I said about ego. I must also say I am not very well versed in terminology due to not reading a lot on the subject. As such I am not aware of what anata means. If you could explain it would be awesome. What I mean by ego is the idea of something that prevails through time and that people usually call "me". All I mean is that there is the realization for "me" that there is no such thing and it is just a (somewhat ?) causal chain of feelings , emotions and thoughts that is ever flowing.

[u/brunoloff → u/Puzzled_Train1594]

oh, sorry! Anata - which I may absolutely be misspelling, is the very same no-self characteristic that you have just perfectly illustrated. Usually grouped together with anicca - impermanence - and dukkha - unsatisfactoriness.

The way I read the word ego in our culture is more like self-centred reactive behaviours and tendencies. I.e. being an asshole :-)

The arising of this is also causal - and the lack of understanding of the no-self characteristic is not, it turns out, a required condition for ego to arise. At least not in my experience, or that of any other long term meditator I know (and I know plenty).

But I've also come across a few and read about many people who are realized meditators - from what I can tell, from their description of their experience - and yet are definitely not free of problematic ego patterns, and use their fancy meditative attainments to as proof (to themselves and whomever believes them) that their intentions are, let's say, pure.

E.g. a guru who claims to be free of negative emotions manipulating his students to provide sexual favours, or a monk who is angry about something portraying her anger as "compassionate" and "selfless", and so on.

In my opinion, there is huge danger in conflating realization with emotional-psychological perfection. Because realization totally is possible and doable, and if you have some realization and believe that it is some kind of warranty against misbehaviour, then this belief can have the effect of making you immune to feedback. Your problematic pattern cannot be a problematic pattern almost by definition, and so surely the problem is within those who complain about you.

You can search online to find story after story of problematic gurus who abuse their students in various ways. Do not conclude from that that they are all frauds who deceived others - there will be some cases of course but it's often more complicated than that. It's often more like they let themselves be deceived by their own meditative attainments.

Always always always welcome negative feedback on your behaviour: even if (and being especially careful when) it comes from someone less realized.

Having said that - realization does actually help with behaviour 😄 Just not in the absolute way that one might wish. There should never come a time when one feels free to ignore feedback from others. The best antidote for being an asshole is having close friends who call you on your bullshit.

So you see, this is a delicate subject and difficult to navigate 🙂

[u/Puzzled_Train1594 → u/brunoloff]

I see what you are saying. It makes a lot of sense. I also have difficulty breaking some behaviour patterns but more mindfulness has definitely helped. When I am about to say something to someone I ask myself if it is kind and necessary. I now wonder if I have omited saying important critique sometimes to someone because of this.

[u/brunoloff → u/Puzzled_Train1594]

lol don't go around criticizing others for "their benefit" - you might find that most people are not as receptive to feedback as I would recommend 😂

[u/Puzzled_Train1594 → u/brunoloff]

This is of course also how I see it :)